


All or Nothing at All

by Sonora



Series: Beyond the Sea [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Doctor Strange (2016), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, F/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-Canon Fix-It, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:48:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22339540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sonora/pseuds/Sonora
Summary: Turns out, Bruce may have been completely mistaken about how time travel works.Or, Steve wants a nice quiet life with Peggy, but it may not be as easy as he hoped.
Relationships: Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers
Series: Beyond the Sea [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1608067
Comments: 2
Kudos: 48





	All or Nothing at All

**Author's Note:**

> Y'all will have to forgive me for writing het. My muse has been traumatized by certain life events over the past few years - I'm not being dramatic here, life has been bad. I'm trying to coax the muse out from under the bed and back into functionality. This is what it wants to write, so there we go. 
> 
> The time travel stuff in Endgame almost ruined the movie for me. I need to resolve it. Which I hope will be interesting and fun.
> 
> Also, I think I might have screwed up timelines in my first snippet story... this starts in 1946, a year after the war. I think Steve disappeared in '45? Just work with me on this. And it's been a while since I watched Agent Carter, but I'm going to try to keep things lined up.

"I'm not much of a cook," Peggy had said.

"I know a good place," Steve had told her.

If anything, it was an excuse to get out of the house. Not that Peggy wanted to leave, not exactly, but she wasn't sure what she might say - or worse, do - if they stayed there.

A year was a long time apart. A long time to mourn. A long time, to suddenly have him back. 

Steve was larger than life. He always had been. Even before the procedure, he had been more of a man than any she'd ever known. Not that Peggy had been looking for anything; there was a war on, and there were bigger things at stake, and she hadn't joined up, fought her way into Intelligence, just to look for a husband. More than a few of her friends had landed themselves their soldiers, but Peggy had been determined.

No distractions.

Now, after the nonsense of her betters at SSR, it was almost a relief to have a man open a car door for her and not try to touch her as she stepped in.

Although this was Steve Rogers. Her soldier, back from the dead. He could have touched all he wanted.

Which was why they were going out for dinner.

She knew where she would have liked them to end up, after that dance. But Steve had always been, well, not stand-offish exactly, but very proper.

If she was being honest, Peggy was afraid that if she pushed him, he might disappear on her again. Irrational perhaps, but not much about this evening was very logical, now was it? 

Turned out, Steve took her to some place in Brooklyn that was far nicer on the inside than out, a haphazard little brick facade concealing a graceful little dining room that smelled of woodsmoke and good wine. It was quiet, secluded, rather intimate. 

Intimate, where Steve was not.

They talked, of course. But they weren't saying anything real. Quiet little questions from Steve, avoiding the real issues, the real questions. She had never taken him for a dissembler. She didn't much like the revelation that he could lie.

It took until their main courses came for Peggy to work up the courage to give voice to something that desperately needed answering.

"So, Steve," Peggy asked, forcing herself to keep her cool, "where have you been?"

"A bit of everywhere," Steve replied, with a bit of a pained smile. "Like you would not believe."

"Sounds interesting."

"Some of it was."

"Can you tell me about it?"

He paused, fork and knife hovering over his steak. "I'm not sure," he said.

She took a deep breath. "SSR business, then? With not so much as a postcard."

"Peggy..."

She held up her hands. "I know how it is," she said, and she did, she really did. As much as it made her want to scream. She forced herself to smile instead. "The life we chose, eh?"

It was an out she was giving him, a little easy banter and things could be pleasant again. Steve didn't take it. She should have known he wouldn't.

"I... Peggy, you remember the Tesseract? Of course you do. But you've got to know, there are things out there, so much more than we ever knew. Beautiful things." He reached out to lay a hand atop hers. "And some really terrible shit. Shit that tried to kill us. Probably still will. They needed me, Stark and everybody. But after he-"

The swearing was definitely new. But that wasn't why he'd stopped, and they both knew it. The knowledge stretched out into painful quiet. 

"I suppose we should get you off the KIA lists," she said, just to break up whatever that was. "Get you your back pay and pension, or if you'd like, I can talk to Howard about having you come work with us on his S.H.I.E.L.D. initiative. It's a fantastic little organization, or at least, it could be."

"It will be," he said, "when you're done with it."

She smiled. "Like they're going to let a woman run the whole show."

"I think you'd be amazed what women will get to do," he told her, and then took a deep breath, like he'd said something wrong. Deliberately changed the subject. "I'd love to see Howard."

"Good," she said, smiling, and went back to her food. "That's wonderful. You can come with me tomorrow."

He smiled back. 

They lingered at the restaurant until closing time. Steve bought another bottle of wine, and they both had dessert - Steve seemed irrationally pleased about the pie, _it's amazing how good the apples are_ \- and their waiter wouldn't even hear their apologies for closing the place down, much less accept Steve's money for the bill. 

"You are Captain Rogers, aren't you?" he asked.

"Yes, but..."

"But nothing. You and your boys saved my squad, back in France. Heard you were dead. Mighty glad to see that's not true, sir." 

Steve had just nodded tightly and thanked him, but looked distant as they walked out.

Peggy took a deep breath as they hit the sidewalk, the muggy New York evening. _Steady girl, just offer, he'll take it if you offer_. She turned to him, her six-foot-four of impossibility. "Would, umm, would you like to... do you have somewhere to stay tonight, Steve?"

"A friend offered to lend me a room for a while," he told her, as they walked towards the elevated train stop. "Until I get back on my feet."

"They sent you undercover for years and didn't even pay you?" she demanded, the sudden flare of anger over the professional slight overtaking what she had been really asking. She would be talking to Howard about that tomorrow, Peggy decided. 

"Not exactly," he said with a faint smile that hid more than it explained. "And I only got back in town today." 

"Well, you are welcome to stay with me. In fact, I insist upon it." There. That hadn't been so tough, had it?

He stopped at that, turning into her. Steve spread one of those big strong hands of his across her cheek, one finger curling gently into her hair. "I don't think that's a good idea," he murmured.

What? "Why not?"

"I've been away a long time," he said, voice a low rumble. 

"What does that have to do with anything?"

All the answer she got, however, was a gentle kiss, his lips brushing against hers, and then he was pulling away. "Where should I meet you tomorrow?"

With a sigh, she gave him the address, the instructions. And went to catch her train.

Men were infuriating sometimes.

+++++

It may have been a mistake coming back.

Or at least, coming back like that.

"Fifteen years, and you still can't get through a conversation with her," he muttered to himself as he walked back home. "Great job, Steve. Great job."

He had been so eager to see her. So excited, wanting to see her again. Alive and young, the way he remembered her. Vibrant. Vital. Not the old woman dying of dementia in a nursing home, the one who was spared the Snap just to fade away anyway.

No.

He wanted to - oh, how he wanted to scoop her up and kiss her breathless, take her to her bed and make love to her. But he hadn't counted on how overwhelming it had been just to talk to her again, whole and bright, and he remembered some of the shit from the war. 

Steve didn't want to push. Didn't want to take something she might regret giving. He loved her, but he respected her and it wasn't some modern twenty-first century fling he was after with her.

Still.

He'd said no without actually realizing she was saying yes, and that look in her eyes...

Damn, but he was an idiot.

"People still have sex now," he told himself as he unlocked the front door of the small apartment complex and headed for the stair in the back. "Jesus, Steve, people still have sex outside marriage here."

_Yeah, but you promised yourself..._

Or just general awkwardness. That was it. From seeing Peggy again. That's all it was. Nerves.

Steve smiled a little at the feel of the stair bannister under his fingers. His place was on the third floor, and he took the steps two at a time. The elevator this decade was a creaky thing, original, unreliable, yet to be replaced. Late 90s, maybe, but he hadn't paid that much attention to it back in 2012 when he first moved in here.

S.H.I.E.L.D. had gotten him the place then.

Somebody else had rented it for him now. His exact same apartment. A care package left at the Bleeker Street address, right at the front door with his name on it. Like they'd known he was coming, which of course, they had. Who they was, Steve wasn't exactly sure, but he'd be sure to thank them at some point. Pay them back too.

Once he figured out what he was going to do for work.

Art never had paid the bills. He didn't have Bucky's spare room to crash in anymore. And as for going back to the Army, well, whatever Peggy might have been thinking, he'd had his fill of war.

It was nice to have his old apartment back. Furnished about the same too, which was an added-

"Did we do a good job for you, Captain Rogers?"

Steve frowned, pushing open the apartment door. There was a man standing there, in Eastern clothing with a flamboyant red cape draped around his shoulders. 

"Doctor Strange," he sighed. "What can I do for you?"

"You can sit down and listen," and a chair pulled itself out from the table. "Because this is a Grade A problem we have on our hands here."

Steve crossed his arms, staring at the wizard, or whatever it was Strange did. Protecting the fabric of spacetime, or something like that. Truth be told, the last few days in 2023, after Tony died, were a bit of a blur in his mind. "I'm not leaving her again."

"Oh, I know. I'm not here to talk you back into the clusterfuck that is our post-Snap world. Just the opposite, actually."


End file.
